I disliked Jimmy Clausen before he played a game for Notre Dame. His parents gamed the system when he was a kid, starting him a year late in kindergarten and then having him repeat sixth grade. He turned 19 on September 21 of his senior year, so he was two years older than most of his high school opponents.

That said, he is a great low-risk backup quarterback for the Bears. Here’s a guy who was great when he was old for his stage, but struggled both times he was young; he was benched as a freshman at Notre Dame when he averaged 5.1 yards per pass and was sacked a school-record 34 times and hasn’t thrown a pass since his 58.4 passer rating in 10 games as a rookie four years ago. Well, Clausen is no longer too young. Perhaps he can grow up like Kyle Orton, who had a 59.7 rating as a rookie and has been a solid backup and decent starter ever since.

Cubs draft arms

The Cubs offense is so bad that pitcher Travis Wood, with two homers in 22 at-bats, has their fourth-highest offensive Wins Above Replacement at 0.6. Career .227 hitter Luis Valbuena is second at 1.3. Starlin Castro has improved from being bad last year to being average, but looks like that’s about all he will ever be. That leaves Anthony Rizzo as the one big batting hope in the current lineup. Rizzo is in pace for career highs in just about everything except doubles with 12 homers, 40 walks, 38 runs, 33 RBIs, a .402 on-base percentage, .493 slugging and .895 OPS.

So, why did the Cubs use eight of their top 10 draft picks on pitchers this week? Because Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Albert Almora, Jorge Soler and Arismendy Alcantara give them maybe the best group of minor league position players in baseball, but Randy Wells, Casey Coleman, Jeff Samardzija and Rich Hill are the only home-grown pitchers to make even 15 starts in a season for the Cubs in the last 10 years. The Cubs desperately need pitchers, who are notoriously overpriced and unreliable on the free-agent market, as they learned with Edwin Jackson.

Sox value pick

The baseball draft is notoriously unpredictable; 47-percent of the No. 3-overall picks finish with a career of 1 Win Above Replacement or less. Still, the White Sox getting presumed No. 1 choice Carlos Rodon looks like a bargain. Not quite at the rate of the Twins getting No. 1 overall prospect Byron Buxton at No. 2 two years ago and the Cubs getting Kris Byrant at No. 2 last year, but still the best pick of the draft. Byrant is hitting .344 with 19 HRs in Class AA.